This is nowhere near as fun as it should be. Forget Jaws; a realistic goal might be Deep Blue Sea or, a change in ravenous animal notwithstanding, Lake Placid, and this is notably inferior to both. It is rather tedious, honestly, particularly in its second half. The comic-relief elements and melodramatic subplots are dreadful; they go well beyond, "Oh, no one expects Oscar-caliber writing in The Meg" and are often cringe-worthy, particularly the forced humor. The shark set pieces have individual, fleeting moments of fun and suspense, though the scale of the megalodon is never as awe-inspiring or fearsome as it should be, and the inevitable third-act sequence in which it swims its way to a crowded Chinese beach feels oddly truncated (and hamstrung by the limitations of PG-13 rating). I love Jason Statham as much as the next person, and he is in his usual fine form here (agile and charismatic and amiably irascible), and it is always nice when a film allows him to perform a few aquatic stunts. The Meg would be an even tougher sit with a lesser star. He has zero chemistry with a hesitant Li Bingbing, however. Ruby Rose is a constant and awful distraction, with her one-note pose of contemptuous pouting. The air instantly leaves a scene when it cuts to her.

I gotta say that for the most part I agree with David's review. I love underwater creature features, especially films like Deep Blue Sea and Lake Placid which I watched a ton as a kid, but this is sadly nowhere near as fun as either of those. It's not like I was going into this expecting something along the lines of Jaws, but even more recent shark films like The Shallows and 47 Meters Down were better than this IMO and didn't even have half this films budget. The action sequences with the shark are tense and quite suspenseful at times and Statham is very likable here in leading action hero fashion, but I was expecting so much more in the carnage department. I don't even think the PG-13 rating is the reason for all the blame either, because I remember there being some pretty gory moments in The Shallows, but honestly the deaths just aren't very creative and really lack any kind of bite no pun intended. Outside of the scenes with shark this movie does get seriously bogged down by the human characters. It's a shame too because I liked Cliff Curtis and Rainn Wilson's characters, but the writing and dialogue some of the other supporting characters are given is pretty bad with the attempts at comedic relief being the worse and I'm specifically talking about the character played by Page Kennedy who did nothing, but get on my damn nerves most of the time.

C+

I really liked what was there, but I can’t believe they didn’t have the shark eat a helicopter. That was the iconic moment from the hook and there was so much other helicopter related shenanigans.

The Meg

I thought this was fucking awful. There is a prehistoric shark the size of a boat on the loose, and everyone's laughing and joking every 5 minutes, even when the shark is still in close proximity! No fear. No suspense. No excitement. Besides Statham finally taking it down (and some other scenes where he shows off some athleticism), the film was a bit of a bore. I kept watching and hoping for something to grab me, but it never did. It commits some big movie sins; white guy trying to speak Mandarin, bubble-obscured kills, no gore whatsoever despite many people dying (that Sanya beach scene was a huge letdown), Statham immediately hitting it off with Bingbing...corny doesn't do it justice. Speaking of Bingbing, she is so fucking wooden and almost always sounds like she's reading off the script. One big, dumb, fat, terrible script. Ugh, the dialogue in this is horrible.

The film is just way too goofy for my taste. People will label it as "fun". All I can say is if that's your kind of fun, then you're very easily pleased. It is completely harmless "fun", I guess. But it's just not enjoyable. Not once did I smile. Not once did I gasp. Or watch in awe. The shark is never utilized in a cinematic way, and the whole film feels cheap. Statham deserved better than this.

D+

I hated it when the little girl is in danger on a lower level (how her mother knows that, I do not know!), and Bingbing exclaims, "my daughter!". This irritated me. Surely a mother (and anyone that knows her name) would shout "Mei!".

I think it works better as a Jason Statham disaster thriller than a goofy shark movie. The man is great in this role, which was my biggest worry going in. I bought his romance with Li BingBing, his bond with her daughter, his feud with his old partner, his heroic tendencies, etc...

The PG13 rating was critical to its success, there were a bunch of kids in my screening. But it clearly affected the shark scenes in a negative way. The chomping is never fun. The movie takes time to note how sad every death is instead of just embracing the chomp and getting back to the action.

Seen a few ads for this on Chinese TV since seeing it, and nothing strikes me harder than the Sanya scene. It makes absolutely no fucking sense that a shark that chases every single human-sized meal with such ferocity two-hundred miles from the coast becomes a fucking vegan when he's faced with a thousand people to swallow as he skims along the surface of the water.

Sharknado 6 ended up using the megaladon eats the t-rex bit.

This was crap. The first half is meaningful but over-long, the second half has Statham but devoid of any suspense or thrills. Given the sheer size of Meg, whole charade of catching it with a speed boat seems silly and they survive like three attempts. If its chasing Statham then climbing on the boat saves him but the shark has destroyed MUCH bigger submarines than this?? I can't even begin to describe the crapiness of the beach scene, the shark surfaces and eats no one(??), its huge but can swim close to a beach in shallow waters? (what?why? how?). I can understand why families are having fun given that the R-rating is watered down (pun intended) here but this could have been made with a regular sized shark which would have worked better IMO in terms of action scenes.

Agreed!

The Meg 2 is finally using the trex scene from the first book. They better have a damn shark eat a helicopter in this movie or I'm throwing popcorn at the screen!

Meg 2 also looks nothing like the second book, but that might honestly be for the best. Hopefully they'll atleast keep the cronosaurs.